Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1918 — AMERICAN IS NOT SONGSTER [ARTICLE]

AMERICAN IS NOT SONGSTER

Seems That Real Musical Instinct Hat Yet to Be Awakened in the United States. The last quarter of a century the general feeling has spread abroad that America was quite a musical nation, and it is true that in the large cities of the eastern seaboard and quite far into the middle West there is a good deal of listening to music in the form of opera and concerts, given, for the most part, by imported musicians; but when we reach the great heart of the country we find that the natural instincts of the people are almost entirely starved, or ‘at any rate, very poorly nourished. For a musical nation is not one which merely listens to music made by others, any more than a people is athletic if, instead of exercising themselves, they watch others indulge in gymnastics. A musical people is one which considers music such an indispensable food and tonic for their own spirits and Imaginations that they sing and play in every activity of daily life just as freely and naturally as they laugh and speak. For many centuries this has been true of all the great European nations —the-Italians, French, Scotch, Irish, Scandinavians, Russians and others —and the result is the great body of folk song and folk dance which is thf priceless heritage of all these nations.

Just why the American has not yet become a singing animal (as Aristotle said everyone was a social animal) is a difficult matter to explain, although, doubtless, if sufficient time were taken, reasonable causes might be suggested; but, at any rate, it is a fact Surely one of the most direct products of this war will be the bringing home to the whole body politic of the value of music, for by means of the stress of war which Is bringing the whole country together, a love of music may be carried into the most remote parts of the country.

Good regimental bands have always furnished one of the most sympathetic bonds between the body politic and the government of any given country, and we earnestly hope that more and more, both daring the war and after It, we shall ■ have In America a number of such bauds which will consider It their pleasure and duty to play at all public and patriotic meetings, especially on national holidays, thus impressing upon all citizens the stimulating effect of martial music. In a number of the camps in thq middle West and in Texas we were told by officers and song leaders that there were drafted men who had come in from remote towns and settlements who had never seen any musical instruments, such as a pianoforte and violin, and who had no Idea that men could make pleasing sounds with their vocal organs in connection with the uttering of words.